ISTANBUL – Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at protesters occupying a park in central Istanbul, injuring scores in the latest violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations. The protest at Gezi Park started late on Monday after developers tore up trees but has widened into a broader demonstration against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). Riot police recently clashed with tens of thousands of May Day protesters in Istanbul. Police staged a dawn raid on demonstrators who had been camping for days in Gezi Park in anger at plans to build a shopping mall, and clouds of tear gas rose around the area in Taksim Square that has long been a venue for political protest. “We do not have a government, we have Tayyip Erdogan...Even AK Party supporters are saying they have lost their mind, they are not listening to us,” said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Bosphorus University who attended the protest. “This is the beginning of a summer of discontent.” The Istanbul Medical Chamber, a doctors' association, said at least 100 people sustained minor injuries on Friday, some of them when a wall they were climbing collapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas. – Reuters
